Discernment is a foreign word in American Christianity. People go to church with their spiritual radar turned off, setting themselves up to be deceived and robbed by crafty men. I watched a pastor on TBN last week tell his congregation that God rewards obedience with luxury homes and cars. The crowd burst into applause. I doubt this perversion of the gospel would sell in the torture rooms of North Korea and China, where persecuted Christians are content being rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom of God (James 2:5).
How did the American church become deaf, dumb and blind? What dulled our hearts and minds to biblical truth? Rav Sha'ul (Paul) saw the same weakness in the first-century church and called it for what it was: spiritual immaturity. He writes in Hebrews 5:12-14:
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.
Believers were content to remain spiritual infants. They were lazy and uncommitted. They received the message of repentance and salvation but stopped growing. Because they refused to learn and seek solid food, they became sluggish in understanding. They were not equipped to discern good and evil, making themselves vulnerable to the wolves infiltrating the fledging church. Sha'ul offers a remedy in 2 Timothy 2:15 – "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth (KJV)." Modern translation: Open your Bible. Start a daily reading program (some publishers offer translations that take you through the Bible in a year). Ask Yeshua for knowledge, wisdom and understanding. By immersing yourself in the Word, you will grow and learn to distinguish between holy and unholy, clean and unclean. You will be qualified to offer solid food to a church body that needs to be weaned from milk.